Chapter Eleven
SINNERS
That was the Sabbath where everything happened, where Jesus had astonished the crowd in the synagogue and then followed up his teaching by driving out a demon from the boy Uriah. All that night they had prayed and sang in the house while Jesus healed, and then, as the sun came up, he had directed them, with his seemingly endless power, to drop their nets into the sea from which they brought up a great catch.
And miracle of miracles, here was Sebastian, in this very synagogue.
“My commander is a powerful official here,” he had said. “Your God or our God is good, for he knew I wanted to follow John, but could not. But maybe there is a way I can follow your Jesus. While he is here.”
Caught up in the power of the night, John’s flesh throbbed with life long after he put Jesus to bed. And how heavy Jesus had been as he laid him down, heavy with sleep, weighted with all of his works. Once Jesus dozed, Sebastian caught John’s hand and led him away.
“I have never been in the home of a Gentile,” John said, almost joking.
“Well, then come and see,” Sebastian said, lifting his arm above John like a wind as he lead him into the comparative darkness of the house.
“I smell of fish and exhaustion,” John’s whisper had echoed in the dark.
“I will take you to the bath for that. I will take us both to the bath.”
They had bathed in the semi darkness of splashing pools, and Sebastian had led him to bed. Spearmint and thyme was on the soldier’s breath, and his arms felt good so John surrendered to his human touch, the roughness of his fingertips and soldier hands, the smoothness of the body unseen right now, only touched. John was surprised by his own strength and his need. His thighs reached up to pull Sebastian down, his hands firmly planted on his shoulder till they became claws, till they ran down and up his back and, at last, hungry for him, John turned on his stomach and clung to the frame of the bed as, in the early morning, arms pressing into his shoulders, Sebastian plowed him over and over and John cried out his staggered hallelujahs until Sebastian started in exulation and cried, silently, cramming him with his seed.
In those last days before they set south for Jerusalem and the Feast, there was barely a moment of peace, but no one minded. Jesus’s brothers and sisters went back ot Nazareth, but Mary stayed in the house of Simon Peter with Ahinoam, who seemed to be as sick from loneliness as she had been from fever. And Salome was glad to have her sister only a few doors down
“You know,” she said, “I’d be glad to have my sister live with me too.”
“But Zebedee would not,” Mary said, and frankly, “ and I would not wish to stay with him either.”
Marta and Lazarus went back to Sephorris to await the time when they would all travel south. Jesus, too, had made his dwelling place in the home of Simon Peter. Ada and Ahimoam could not do enough, and he asked for very little. Peter felt for Jesus what he had felt for no one, a deep belief and almost instant devotion, though he understood what Jesus had done. It wasn’t only his mother-in-law and the fish. By them Jesus had made a door in him, so that now he could listen to him. Now, he could believe, and it had been hard, all of that disbelieving, all of that coldness he had placed over his heart calling it living with the little that God brought, calling it the faith in God even when the skies were dry and God did nothing.
“Ask and it will be given to you;” Jesus had said. “Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
The first day Jesus had come, some stragglers came to Zebedee’s house to hear him, and then he went to the synagogue the next day. That night, the night when he had healed Ahinoam, the house was filled with lines of those who came to be healed, but ended up caught in the dance. Now, when he came to the synagogue, some found fault and there was much argument—fair and good, that was the nature of synagogue life—but his audience, just as lively, and often just as half believing and half unbelieving, had come to be the people who filled Simon Peter’s courtyard and even his rooftops on a daily basis, and though this meant, perhaps, less sleep for someone whose trade involved trawling for fish at night, it was a cheerful noise, the most cheerful noise Simon had ever known.
“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?” Jesus demanded. “Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”
One day there were so many, no room was left, not even outside the door, and Jesus preached the word to them.
“Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed—”
He stopped and ran a hand over his face.
“As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and—what the devil?”
Jesus moved out of the way, and near him John shouted.
Bits of the turf and tile were falling away, dirt crumbled down on them, and Mary, beside Magdalene, saw a whole growing in the roof, and then they could make out a stretcher being lowered to the space before Jesus who looked up to see four men, and he motioned to John, Nathanael and Philip to help them bring the man down.
“Forgive us, Master,” the men kept saying as they lowered their friend, and more dirt fell onto the floor. Mary was privately glad that Peter was asleep.
“Forgive us, Master, they said over and over, “forgive us.”
Jesus, seeming very uninterested in forgiving, was lowering the man who was bound and tied to a pallet. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and when the man lay at Jesus’s feet, looking down on him, and then up and the new made skylight, Jesus shook his head, a strange kind of laughter, almost like a sob coming from him.
“Child,” he said to the frozen man, limbs, drawn together, his face drawn from the pain of every day, “your sins are forgiven.”
But much like in synagogue, this was no crowd that blithely accepted Jesus’s words, and among them, in their black robes, looking like crows, were teachers of the Law, and while Mary thought of the practical matters of roof repair, their minds sizzled with the blasphemy from Jesus’s mouth.
“Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
There were murmurs all around, and whether Jesus picked up on the static of their thoughts or herd actual words, he knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’?”
What had some of these people become that their minds went to this place? For not the first time, the bit of anger that he had tried to tamp, the unbelief he had attempted to cover, revealed itself in the shaking of his head. He was not done, of course he was not done. Of course he was not stopping at telling a man whose body had bee crunched into uselessness, “You’re forgiven. God forgives you. Have a nice day.” But the response, the poisonous response, made him smile all the more when he spoke now.
“I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”
So he said to the man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.”
Someone barked out a laugh that was immediately choked as Jesus took the man by his dead hand, and that hand squeezed back, and he raised him up by his useless arm, which took on power, and he set him on his feet. For a moment, while Jesus, all in white, stood back, the man weaved about like a baby, walking on his heels, then his tiptoes, then the sides of his feet as he found his balance. But as he crashed from one friend to the other, and even into Jesus, his feet settled and he lifted his hands crowing.
The friends reminded Jesus of his disciples, of his friends, and he immediately wished to say, “Follow me!” Ah, now, but that was greedy. It wasn’t for everyone.
The murmuring of the crowd was different as the man stood before Jesus, took his hands and kissed them both.
Now that holiness fell over them like the first night of healing, or like the wedding feast in Cana, where joy became worship, and Mary heard, or maybe it was Mary herself who was praying:
“My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
or the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm!”
About then, even some of the teachers who had criticized Jesus were chanting:
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the God of gods.
His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
His love endures forever.
to him who alone does great wonders,
His love endures forever.
Jesus stood in their midst, head raised to the hole in the roof, the sun shining full on him swaying.
They praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”
They never even noticed that the men, including the one who had been paralyzed, had climbed to the roof to repair their damage. They were all filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to Man.
“I would rather go to that son of a bitch than wait for the son of a bitch to come to me,” Peter decided as he wrapped up the last bag of coins. The first two had come from Zebedee, and Peter said, “No need for him to have to make the trip to see the bastard.”
Things were quiet for once in his house, possibly because of the heat, and Jesus had been half dozing in the covered courtyard when he roused himself and said, “I’ll come with you.”
“You really want to do that?” Peter said. “It’s hot, Master, why trouble yourself?”
“I will come with you,” Jesus repeated.
It was too hot for a cloak, too hot for anything but the simple thin white under robe Marta had also given him, and he and Andrew followed Peter through stewed streets to the booth near the city gate where the sons of Alphaeus made their living. The line was two ways, of those entering town and those who were, if not leaving it, than in it, and because of the heat, the line was small, though the people were frustrated, and while one of the slender sons of Alphaeus seemed almost to take delight in the misery of the people there, the older one seemed weary beyond belief.
“I don’t suppose…” Andrew said to Jesus, “that you could do something to… make it cooler?”
“Do something like what?” Jesus looked at Andrew with a raised eyebrow.
Andrew cleared his throat.
“Forget I asked.”
“I already did.”
“Well, well, the fishermen!” James son of Alphaeus crowed, and Peter said, flatly, “Jacob.”
“You have something for us, I think?”
“We have something for Rome,” Peter said. “How much of it you steal is your own affair.”
Lightly, Peter laid the bags of money before the sons of Alphaeus, and James shook his head, saying, “Tsk, tsk, we are all sons of Israel.”
“As long as we have what we need,” Levi said, “there is no need for… whatever you’re doing, brother.”
There was Levi, all about business.
“And you,” he said to Jesus, “am I wrong or are you that preacher, that miracle man?”
“I am Jesus of Nazareth,” Jesus said.
“Even you know who he is,” Andrew said.
“I heard he cured a demoniac in the synagogue,” Levi said.
“But it’s not as if my brother and I are welcome in the synagogue.”
“Surely all are welcome in the house of study,” Jesus said, and Levi cocked his head at Jesus’s tone, not sure what to make of it.
But Levi replied, “No, rabbi. Not all are welcome.”
“Well, then how will you learn what I have to say?”
“Do you only speak in synagogues?” Levi asked. “I heard you were using the house of Peter and the shore as your pulpit.”
Jesus nodded.
“Then I suppose you do know where you can learn from me.”
Before Levi could open his mouth, his brother said, “Why would we need to learn anything from you?”
“Have a care—” Peter began.
Jesus shrugged, and Andrew knew what he would say before he spoke.
“Come and see.”
“Teacher,” Levi told him, looking past him to the gathering line, “the truth is most days we do not have the leisure to come and see.”
“Then I will come to you.”
“What!” Peter stopped himself from shouting, but they had all done the same thing.
“These are sinners!” Andrew said.
“We are all sinners,” Jesus said almost airily.
“May I dine with you?”
He turned to James Alphaeus too. “And you?”
Levi blinked, and James tried to smirk, but didn’t know what to do with his face.
“You may,” Levi said. “You may even come tonight. Our home is—”
“I know where youre home is,” Jesus said.
“We will be there.”
